


When The Walls Come Down

by Veeebles



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, I hate how they are writing Sansa, Little Bird and Lady of Winterfell are ONE, Rape does not define you, Sandor knew it, Sansa and Sandor's reunion, Sansa was a Wolf all along, based on the feast in S08E04, i tried to fix it, mild mentions of past abuse, mild mentions of violence, short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-28 05:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18749536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veeebles/pseuds/Veeebles
Summary: She is trembling now, one hand braced upon the wall by her side, her vision blurred and she blinks, unable to look away from him for a second.“All the things that happened to you are not the reasons you are the way you are now. You were always a wolf, little bird, don’t you dare let them be the reason for your strength.”She can feel her walls crack, opening like the great doors of the hall and felt herself pull him inside, encased safely within.A tear falls down her cheek and she feels her lips tremble. He is looking at her so softly.





	When The Walls Come Down

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired and named by the song Walls by Kings of Leon

The noise of the men and women feasting filled the Hall that had been quiet for too long. Sansa wandered here and there, greeting guests, chatting with some of the serving girls, toasting with some Lords. This was the first time she had felt so at home since returning to Winterfell. She half expected to look over to the dais to see her Mother and Father sitting there, smiling and laughing with their guests. The memory pulled at her heart and she took another sip of her wine.

Her eyes wandered around from head to head, watching Tyrion, Jamie and Podrick laughing with Brienne at a table, Jon and Tormund laughing and embracing for the hundredth time, Davos and Gendry talking near the fire.

Her eyes found the familiar shape of Sandor Clegane, sitting almost alone, pouring wine into his mug from a decanter. A serving girl sat near him, braced one hand upon his arm and leaned in close to whisper in his ear.

She watched him snarl in the girl’s face and watched her scurry off in fright.

She saw herself in that girl, once upon a time when he used to snarl at her she would duck her head and run away. Perhaps that wasn’t his intention after all. She used to wonder if it gave him joy to terrify her. Perhaps his bark was worse than his bite.

He had quickly gained the reputation for being mean among the people in the North. Yet for all his snarling and biting, she saw nothing of Joffrey or Ramsey in him. No conniving ploys like Littlefinger. He was honest. So honest it almost made her nervous. She could never imagine being so open and bare as he was. She had built up walls around her, thick and impregnable.

She watched him take another drink and found her feet moving, pulling her towards him.

“She could have made you happy, for a little while.”

He looked up to her slowly, like a deer in the eyes of its prey. She folded herself in to the seat, placing her mug of wine before her.

“There’s only one thing that will make me happy.”

His voice was the same rasp, like steel on stone and she was surprised to find so much comfort in hearing it again.

“And what’s that?”

“That’s my fucking business.”

He turned to her as he spoke, and there it was, his snarling at her. She kept his gaze, finding it easy. Once it would have taken all the courage she had to look at him so. Now, she stared right in to those dark eyes and felt something feather light curl within her.

“Used to be you couldn’t look at me.”

His gaze was strong upon her. He sat there looking right into her and she felt heated under his unwavering gaze. She felt the strange urge to laugh but forced herself to remain composed, determined to show him no sign of the fear she had once felt.

“That was a long time ago. I’ve seen much worse than you since then.”

He nodded, eyes boring in to her, like he could see right in to her soul.

“Yes, I’ve heard. Heard you were broken in. Heard you were broken in rough.”

His gaze softened and for the first time she felt her walls slip. All at once that gaze stormed through her mind, the hundred times she had seen it before in Kingslanding. When she had thought it was pity, now it was a look of concern that made her feel soft.

“And he got what he deserved. I gave it to him.”

Once upon a time, he had told her that killing was the sweeting thing there is. It had appalled her, that anyone could think such a thing. She could never imagine herself being the one to watch the light die from a person’s eyes and know that she had been the cause.

“How?”

Yet, when she had watched her husband, bloody and beaten, be massacred by the very hounds he had loved so well, a deep satisfaction was wormed its way into her bones. She had thought of Sandor then. He had been in her thoughts from the moment he had left her in Kingslanding. She had thought of him in the Eyrie, imagined him dark and terrifying on his black War Horse, storming the keep, taking her with him, away like they should have done long ago.

She thought of another thing he had once said to her.

_You’ll be glad of the hateful things I do, some day, when you’re Queen, and I’m all that stands between you and your beloved King._

His treasonous words would have lost him his head had they been overheard by anyone other than her. Even then, when she was still just a little slip of a girl, fumbling and falling, trying to learn this game of thrones everyone else seemed to know all too well. She had given him nothing, no reason to offer her his protection, yet, there he was, promising her in his own way that even if she should become Joffrey’s Queen, his true possession. When she should have been without the protection of her family, a Baratheon, a tool for Joffrey’s enjoyment and nothing more. Even then, he would put himself between her and Joffrey, protect her when it would give him nothing in return.

She had thought of him as she watched the hounds tear Ramsey’s skin from his bones, imagined his huge, hulking figure in the cell with him, blade flashing in the moonlight as he exerted her revenge for her.

“Hounds.”

He chuckles, a smile sliding across his lips and he seems almost handsome, like any other man.

She returns his smile and watches him lift his mug to his lips.

“You’ve changed, little bird.”

He doesn’t say it like everyone else does. Jon, Arya, Brienne. They all tell her how she has changed and in the same breath mourn the loss of the little girl she used to be. They pity her, that she should have gone through all she had and come out cold as steel.

Sandor says it with pride, smiling and drinking his wine and calling her the name he gave her. The little bird he once knew and the woman that sat before him were one in his eyes. And he looks at her with pride. It is a look that she had wanted from him all along. The little girl in Kingslanding had hated the look in his eyes that she had read as pity, frustration, like he was looking for the girl she was now.

She drops her gaze, the thought souring the wine in her stomach.

As if he read her mind, he spoke again.

“None of it would have happened if you’d left Kingslanding with me. No Littlefinger, no Ramsey. None of it.”

And that was the most telling of all.

She had been scared that night he had come to her. He had risked his life just to find her. She had promised him nothing and he had asked for nothing. He had offered her protection. Offered to risk his head once again to get her home safe. Such a selfless act had baffled her and she had been sure there must have been nefarious means in there somewhere. She had been starting to mistrust everyone around her, to keep her lies and pretty words and she just hadn’t trusted him enough then. She hadn’t known him like she did now.

No one would hurt her or he would kill them. He would have protected her and brought her home. Any thought of harming her, raping her, none of that was ever in his head. Where any other man could have taken advantage of her, he would have died for her. A little slip of a girl.

Her heart felt warm in her chest, for the first time in a long time.

He truly was the knight she had been looking for all her life. A knight, pure and selfless, strong and brave right out of one of her songs.

She places her hand atop his, finding his calloused skin warm and comforting.

“Without Littelfinger and Ramsey and the rest, I would have stayed a little bird all my life.”

It was what she had been telling herself all along. Taking all the poison that flooded her veins from those memories and fuelling it in to the person she was now. She had to tell herself that, had to believe that she was stronger than her circumstances, had to push it all away, keep it in a locked room within the walls she had built up strong and secure around her.

She gets up and gives him one last, small smile before turning to leave. She leaves the hall and breathes a sigh of relief in the quiet corridor outside. She mounts the winding staircase to her chambers and hears heavy steps behind her.

A hand grasps her forearm, not ungently and she turns.

Sandor is there, a few steps below her, head level with hers. He’s looking at her with eyes that shine in the light, hand warm against her sleeve.

“You do not owe your strength to what those cunts did to you.”

His words almost floor her and she feels the blood rushing in her ears like the springs that run through the walls of her home. He licks his lips and those eyes look into her soul.

“You were always this person. You were always strong, always a ruler. I knew that from the first moment I saw you, walking through the yards with your Direworlf by your side.”

His voice is rougher, his eyes shine and she feels her walls crack.

“I’ve been angry ever since I can remember. When my brother gave me my scars I filled my mind with thoughts of killing him. I imagined all the ways I would make him suffer, I wanted him to feel my pain tenfold. But that wont change what he did. I’ll kill him, one day, but I know that won’t make me a different man. Before him I was strong, I was honest and I knew what was right and what was wrong. He didn’t take that from me. No one will.”

She is trembling now, one hand braced upon the wall by her side, her vision blurred and she blinks, unable to look away from him for a second.

“All the things that happened to you are not the reasons you are the way you are now. You were always a wolf, little bird, don’t you dare let them be the reason for your strength.”

She can feel her walls crack, opening like the great doors of the hall and feels herself pull him inside, encased safely within.

A tear falls down her cheek and she feels her lips tremble. He is looking at her so softly.

All the time she had wanted to be strong, he had somehow seen it in her all along. No one had made her feel that way. All this time she still had Littlefinger in her head, telling her that the bad she had seen would mould her in to the Ice Queen she was now.

But him, Sandor Clegane, he had seen her strength from the very beginning.

She leans forwards, wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face in his neck.

He seems frozen on the spot for a moment before strong arms wrap around her waist. He holds her close, steady and strong. She lets her tears fall and feels his fingers stroke though her hair. He smells like leather and wine and firewood and home.

When she pulls away his cheeks are wet too and she brushes fingers across his cheeks, one smooth and soft, the other rough and scared. She smiles and watches his lips curl up at the corners in return.

“Thank you.”

He scoffs at that and it makes her smile, “you’ve got nothing to thank me for, Little Bird.”

He steps up, towering over her once more and offers his arm to her.

“I’ll walk you back to your room.”

She slips her hand into the crook of his arm and leans close, weary from the night, from the grief of battle and the planning of the war to come. All she wants is this moment, walking side by side, like an echo of their past lives. The feast still rages on far away in the great Hall and the rest of Winterfell is so quiet when she turns to him at the door to her chambers. He smiles gently to her, wiping a tear away from her eye almost tenderly and she can feel this moment; precious and delicate, like the winter roses in the glass gardens her Father had built for her Mother long ago.

She goes on her tip toes and presses a kiss to the corner of his scared mouth.

She knows he will leave on the morn. She knows nothing she can say or do will deter him. She knows where he goes from here. She just hopes that one day he will return to this place he could call home.

His eyes are kind, she thinks as she slips in to her room, looking back to him once more. She memorises each detail of his face and finally looks back to his eyes.

The rage in them she had always prayed to diminish is gone.


End file.
